


The Heart Asks Pleasure First

by Unseemingowl



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, I tried to make consent as clear as possible but it still features drug induced horniness, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Link, River is a sexy little Rubik's cube that the Doctor can't figure out, Sex Pollen, Very enthusiastic consent in chapter 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-09-30 19:48:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17230124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unseemingowl/pseuds/Unseemingowl
Summary: “There is no antidote, sweetie. They never bothered coming up with one, would kind of defeat the point. The only antidote is fucking it out of me.”“Right,” he tripped over the word, suddenly remembering the roll of River’s hips, the heat between them despite their layers of clothes. “So when you say you need an older me, it’s because…?”“Time can be rewritten."When it came to River, things never happened the way how he imagined they would. As is made very obvious the day a drugged, overworked River jumps him in 23rd century Hong Kong.





	1. A Visit Not According To Plan

**Author's Note:**

> I owe a big thanks to [queenhawke's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenhawke/pseuds/queenhawke) hilarious and hot ['Maybe I need some rehab (or maybe just need some sleep)'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13669107)  
> (go read it if you haven't already), because this story was basically created because I wondered what would happen if the Doctor had to take care of River in a sex pollen scenario, rather than the other way round. 
> 
> And then it sort of ballooned from there. 
> 
> Chapter 2 will be posted sometime next week.

Amy and Rory looked positively green as they squelched into the console room, and not just from the amount of algae slime stuck to them, although that did certainly lend them both a certain off colour appearance.

”Oh God, it’s everywhere,” Amy whined.

”I think it got into my pants too,” Rory complained.

The Doctor busied himself at the console and tried to draw as little attention as possible – after all he’d only been mildly doused in their escape from the incubation tank of the planet’s sentient algae creatures – as his companions were trying to struggle out of their soaked clothes. At least he was until there was a squeal from Amy. 

“It’s in my bra!”

That did it, the Doctor leapt round the side of the console to see them in a weird and quickly becoming inappropriate state of undress.

“Oooookay then, stop, no stripping in front of the Tardis,” he protested.

Rory was still wearing one sock and his green tinged pants – t-shirt tangled around his neck, while Amy appeared to have gotten rid of all of her clothes from the waist down.

“You were the one who pushed us in!” Amy protested.

“I protected you from the heat lamps.” 

“What was even in there?” Rory asked as he’d finally finished struggling with the t-shirt and flung it off, only to immediately, rather rudely, yell, “Don’t tell me, I don’t actually want to know,” when the Doctor opened his mouth to answer.

“Right, right, touchy, touchy.”

For a moment he stared helplessly at the both of them and the revulsion induced anger they had directed at him. Usually they didn’t get angry with him like this, but then again, it wasn’t every day they got tossed into an alien gestation vat.

The smell probably didn’t help. It was like there was a clogged big city pond spreading under the floor of the room.

“I could take you to the spa,” he finally mustered as a peace offering.

“In the Bubblesphere, and I want at least a week. Without you blundering about,” Amy demanded tartly and as she crossed her arms, he was relieved to see that she was still wearing knickers.

Her eyes had narrowed, and she would probably have looked impressive if a blob of green goo wasn’t wobbling in her hair in time with her movements.

Best not to remark on that though. Her nostrils were flaring bad enough as it was.

“And no skipping ahead. I’m cross with you, you’d better feel it.”

“May I remind you again that I saved you by pushing you into that vat,” he protested.

“You were also the one who said those green blobs were friendly in the first place,” Rory snapped back, but half-heartedly – apparently he had also caught sight of the slime in Amy’s hair, eyes following the wobble.

Obviously neither of them was going to be forgiving any time soon, and finally the Doctor gave up, and tossed the levers into gear.

“I’m gonna be bored without you,” he complained as the Tardis began whirring.

“Yeah, sure you are. We all know you’ll go round to pick up River as soon as we leave,” Rory said, still looking at Amy’s gunk streaked hair, and thankfully not seeing how the Doctor jerked in place at the mention of River’s name.

Amy unfortunately did, scowl replaced by a smirk.

“Bet you wouldn’t mind her stripping anywhere she’d like.” 

“Alright, we’re here,” he hastened, suddenly very much in a hurry to shepherd the two of them out of his Tardis as quickly as possible before he put his big foot right in his big mouth and said something he shouldn’t.

Amy’s grin had turned positively gleeful as the Doctor ducked further and further behind the time rotor, polishing the shiniest of the toggles on the dashboard.

“Are you blushing Doctor? You should ask her. She seems like the type who wouldn’t mind putting on a show if you asked her nicely.” 

“You got a big blop of algae goop in your hair,” he blurted in a desperate attempt to shut her up.

The grin faded in favour for a fresh look of revulsion, and all of a sudden, she was scrambling for the door, Rory in tow, waving an awkward goodbye and yelling “see you in a week. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” before disappearing outside.

The musty smell lingered after they’d gone, though shot through with a burst of perfumed air from the main spa city of the Bubblesphere. He wrinkled his nose. 

But by the time he’d cleaned up and come back, the Tardis had scurried the clothes away and she was back to her old, sweet smelling, time dusty self.

And it was quiet, the old girl’s teasing hum notwithstanding. Though he knew that hum. The timbre of it was one he had come identify as the old girl’s River-melody. 

Two months ago and he would have done exactly as Rory had suggested, and the Tardis was now urging him to do, but that had been before America and before the underwater ballroom. And it had certainly been before their last meeting in Hong Kong.

Ignoring the Tardis’ whirr of protest – and what was up with his ship fancying River so much anyway? – he threw the toggles into gear, aiming for the Bubblesphere a week later. He could pretend he had been somewhere else first. It wasn’t like he was a bad liar or lacking any kind of tall tales.   

Where he stepped out instead was 23rd century Hong Kong.

“You’re a right traitorous old bird, you know that?” he muttered, giving the Tardis a half-hearted kick for good measure, but the noises she made didn’t sound even remotely guilty.

He recognised the waterfront he had landed on well enough. River had introduced him to the restaurant two houses down.

It was right up her street – right up his too as it turned out – placed on stilts right at the waters edge, its coloured lanterns lighting up parts of the flooded city beneath. And under the green lights her smile had looked so fond and enigmatic that he had barely been able to concentrate on the food, even though she had called it the best dim sum on 23rd century Earth.

He blamed that smile for what had happened later. That he hadn’t been quick enough to dodge her hands like the sensible part of his brain had been telling him to do, hadn’t really wanted too, and instead gotten an armful of River and a kiss. And one more, and another one after that with River wriggling all over his lap, and him wriggling back up against her in a way he was really supposed to be above.

Or so he thought.

It helped a little that River was most likely not human. Or at least plus something else the way she could shield against him. Whenever he had tried to poke at her mental defences, he had skated right off, as if a glass wall surrounded her thoughts and it always earned him a reproachfully amused glance that drove him absolutely batty. 

He nearly jumped out of his skin when there was a sudden crackle next to him, and, as if summoned by the sheer force of his brooding, there was River, hair wild with vortex energy. Her face went completely lax with relief as she saw him.  

"River?" 

In what was obviously expedition gear, clutching something wrapped up in canvas to her chest, she looked completely out of place under the brightly coloured lanterns. 

"River, what are you... mpft..."  

The Doctor stumbled back as River's mouth were suddenly on his and it was nothing like the spicy sweetness of their last kisses – he winced as she bit down on his lower lip, too hard for pleasure, and yanked at his hair, as if for good measure. 

His back bumped up against the Tardis, and then they were both staggering through the doors into the warm light from the console. Flushed and panting, River seemed very far from her usual cheeky self, in fact there was no teasing at all as she let go of his hair and kicked the door shut behind them. 

"Where are you?" She wheezed with no further preamble.

"What? 

"And are Amy and Rory on board?" 

"I don't... What's going on?" He stuttered and winced as he realised his hands were flying all over the place, trying to smooth his hair and clothes back into place. It took a force of will to make himself stop.

"Answer me please." 

"Amy and Rory are sulking so I took them to the Bubblesphere, and the last time I saw you was right here," he snapped, his annoyance taking the edge off of his embarrassment. 

"Are you fucking kidding me!?" 

She fumbled for her vortex manipulator, but before plotting anything into the panel, she doubled over, and only him darting forward prevented her from falling face first onto the floor. She was burning up, heat practically coming off of her in waves and his annoyance was quickly replaced with panic.

"Are you alright, what’s going on?”

”I was not supposed to run into this you.”

”That’s not really an answer is it?”

”That’s not really an answer is it,” River parroted with a grimace, not unlike the one you’d see on a nine year old, and the complete lack of proper comeback made him laugh. 

”Stop it. Stop it right now or I’ll strangle you with your own bowtie, you floppy haired idiot!”

Before he really knew what was happening, River dropped the bundle from her arm – it landed with a thud that reverberated against the walls – and cinched him in close with an arm around his neck, and he braced himself whatever she had planned for him. There was no kissing nor any slapping. Honestly it could have gone either way from what he knew of River. Instead she jammed her free hand down the front of her trousers, and her eyes squeezed tightly shut, lips parting in an obscene moan.

”Oh,” he breathed as he watched her.

While it might have been a long time since he’d seen a woman climax, the expression on River’s face was impossible to misunderstand, even if he hadn’t been able to feel her hand rub between her legs.

When her eyes fluttered open again, tongue darting out to wet her lips, the Doctor shifted uneasily, suddenly aware of the increased blood flow to his groin, the expansion of capillaries in his face. And that there was one of the reasons River _had_ to be something other than just human, because he usually didn’t _have_ to follow basic physical programming when he was faced with an amorous human woman. If she wasn’t, the implications of that were far too terrifying to ponder.

“This is not what I had intended, I’m so sorry,” she wasn’t looking at him, but dropped her forehead forward on his chest, squishing his bowtie in the process and the Doctor got a nose- and mouthful of her golden curls. He inhaled deeply and noticed how her intoxicating scent of jasmine and gunpowder was shot through with something sickly sweet and indefinable.

The Doctor had never seen her embarrassed before, but it was radiating off the tense set of her shoulders and the furtive way she was trying to inch her hand back out of her pants. 

“What on Earth is going on?” he mustered, only to immediately wince at the crack in his voice.

“I was excavating at Eagon…”

“Eagon…” he repeated, trying to dig up his hazy info on the planet, saving him from contemplating the flush in her cheeks. “Small moon on the outskirts of the Andromeda galaxy, home to a very influential fertility cult…” 

“They worship their goddess each full moon with drug induced orgies,” she added, voice tense.

“Drug induced…” his voice sounded far too squeaky.

She had succeeded in pulling her hand out of her trousers, and when he caught the scent of her arousal, pungent and warm, he realised he was still holding her up by her shoulders even though she had straightened up completely again. His fingers didn’t seem to want to let go of her. 

“They poisoned you?”

“Not exactly, I redistributed some idols that were apparently coated in it,” she gestured towards the canvas bundle.

“But what are you doing here then?” He asked, deciding, for now, to bypass the scolding she deserved for being cheeky enough to call it redistribution rather than stealing.  

“I wasn’t supposed to run into this you.”

“Not this me…” He hesitated for a moment before adding, “because an older me would know something about an antidote?”

Whole galaxies could have been born and crumbled again in the pause there was before she answered him.

“Something like that.”

Another beat, and somehow his fingers had dipped another half inch under her collar, her skin almost impossibly soft under his touch, and River’s pupils dilated even further, lips parting with a soundless gasp.

“Listen, sweetie, I’d better head out now.”

“What, why?”

“You know why,” when he simply lifted his brows, River huffed. “I’m barely hanging on as it is.”

“I’m sure I could help with the antidote too.”

She laughed, not her usual kind, warm and throaty, but sharp and hysterical, fingers tightening in his jacket, but when she looked up at him, her eyes were old. Older by far than the seemingly 40 year old shell she inhabited. That was the only reason he was even contemplating this. She wasn’t some normal human child.

“There is no antidote, sweetie. They never bothered coming up with one, would kind of defeat the point. The only antidote is fucking it out of me.”  

“Right,” he tripped over the word, suddenly remembering the roll of River’s hips, the heat between them despite their layers of clothes. “So when you say you need an older me, it’s because…?”

“Time can be rewritten.” 

She was just perfect, wasn’t she. Panting and close to fidgeting herself to pieces, and she was still trying to give him a way out if he wanted it.

“But you’re in pain,” he protested, noticing how the pulse in her neck had sped up again, sweat beginning to bead on her face as her temperature spiked once more.

“I’ve had worse,” she muttered, even as a twitch went through her face and made her teeth grind together. 

“River…”

“I’m not turned on by the idea of a pity shag, Doctor.”

"Well, strictly speaking River, aren’t you already...?" 

"I've been poisoned!" She breathed sharply for a few seconds, fingers biting into the flesh of his upper arm.

”It wouldn’t be a pity shag,” he confessed, clumsily petting the snarls of her hair.

“But not really ideal for a first time either, you said it was memorable.”

“I think this would definitely qualify as memorable,” he said, trying to hold back the nervous giggling, pretty sure that she would make good on her threat this time and actually throttle him.

Although in this situation, it could possible turn out more amorous than murderous, and for a moment the thought of that distracted the Doctor so thoroughly, he almost didn’t hear her next words.

“I don’t want to scare you, sweetie, I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to be like when the drugs actually hit me.”

“I’m almost a thousand years old, it’ll take more than randiness to scare me,” he protested and then frowned further as River began laughing.

“Oh honey, that’s as blatant a lie as I’ve ever heard.”

He was tempted to kiss her to just shut her up, was pretty sure it would work to, but thought the better of it. He wasn’t entirely sure she would be able to say no if he made a move like that, even if she wanted to.

And how on earth had the tables turned so much that he was suddenly the one trying to persuade her? But another bout of her shivers saved him from humiliating himself with any more attempts.

”Doctor. Are you really up for this? Truly?” she finally grunted when the shivers had subsided.

Up was really not going to be a problem, but rather than say something as flippant as that, he coughed instead and shifted, awkwardly aware of the press of his erection against his trousers.

“I am, River. I promise.”

That seemed to do it. Her shoulders slumped and her trembling hand inched away from the vortex manipulator around her wrist, and all of a sudden he had to swallow back panic.

He could do this. He could help her out, scratch that strange itch he had going on for her and then get it out of his system. That was how he was going to solve this, how he would make himself pull away from her…

“Right, let’s find a bedroom then,” she snapped, and began to inch her way up the stairs, walking with the measured, precise steps of a person who was trying to avoid pain.

He followed her, taking the steps two at a time and sent up a prayer to the Tardis that there would be a bedroom somewhere close by. The Doctor threw the doors open. Arcade room, cheese storage, hat room, painting room. Bedroom. Or well, a room with a bed in it anyway, it looked mostly like an inoffensive hotel room, but good enough. When he turned around, he realised River wasn't keeping up. She’d stopped a few doors down, hanging onto the wall, panting heavily. 

“River? 

“Not sure I can walk anymore,” she whispered through clenched teeth and then whimpered. “Hurts too much.”

“Would you…” he trailed off. “Should I carry you to bed then?”

She huffed a helpless hysterical laughter at that, but nodded, reaching out a hand towards him. Only as soon as he’d gotten his arms around her, it was suddenly like being in charge of an armful of rabid possums. Her limbs scrabbled for purchase everywhere, and he flinched when her teeth sunk into his neck.

“Ow, River, ow!”

But she didn’t let up, and when she brought her tongue out to lap over the abused flesh, it was not altogether unpleasant. Actually it was…

The Doctor staggered the rest of the way into the open room, trying to put her on the bed, but that didn’t calm her down. Rather she attacked his jacket as soon as her bottom touched the bedspread, frantic hands yanking at his bowtie and his shirt.

“River, hang on for a second…”

“I just want to feel you,” she panted, ripping his shirt apart and sending buttons flying everywhere.

“Oi!” He liked that shirt, liked the buttons especially – they had little dolphins branded on them.

Her hands were scalding hot against his belly when she got her wish of skin against skin. He sighed under the touch of her fingers, but then was pulled forward and somehow ended up beneath her, wincing as he took an elbow to the chin in the heat of the moment.

“River, ow, really, I…”

Astride him River looked just as glorious as she had the last time they met, terrifying too if he was being perfectly honest, and when she went for his belt, his hands joined hers. Whether he was working with her or against was another discussion though. He wasn’t quire sure himself. This was so far removed from the thrill of flirting with her he was practically in another galaxy. He wasn’t even sure he remembered how this went. 

No wait, he definitely did – River had rocked forward on his lap, and before he could stop himself, he rocked back against her, both of them moaning in unison at the contact. She seemed to abandon all plans of getting them both naked, and dug her knees into the mattress. A few slow gyrations on top of him at first, then faster until all the Doctor could do was hang on.

When he came, it seemed almost like an afterthought compared to the shudders that wracked through River. She vibrated on top of him in what seemed like forever, while the blissed out relief he felt was quickly replaced by the embarrassment and discomfort over the wet patch in his trousers. He’d forgotten how messy sex actually was. 

It didn’t take long before she began moving again, but the Doctor took advantage of her orgasm slurred movements to roll her over and quickly shove a hand between her thighs, trying desperately to take charge before she managed to hump him stupid. His success took him aback – her legs went limp, splaying bonelessly to the side and giving him free access – and he couldn’t hold back a pleased little hum.

It was like he had found an off-switch.

There was so much heat and wetness between her legs that he had two fingers inside of her before he even realised what he was doing. 

And what was he supposed to be doing exactly? As River’s body contorted while she angled herself differently on his fingers, the elastic of her underwear digging into his wrist, the Doctor struggled to remember what normally worked in this situation. It wasn’t until River began to rock against him that he managed to pull up some of his knowledge on female human anatomy. Menstrual cycle, not applicable, hormone levels, related but not really relevant right now, vaginal structure – that was the ticket! The Doctor crooked his fingers, rubbing up against the ridge of her pubic bone from within her, and was immediately rewarded with a cry from River.

"More!" 

More, right, what did that entail exactly? Force, girth, speed? Almost sliding his fingers out, he slipped in a third one when he plunged back inside, and River nearly came off the bed. There was a shift in her pelvis as she adjusted to accommodate the increase in penetration, as if she was instinctively trying to maximise the pleasure. Then, at the first press against her clitoris, she flopped onto her back, a full body shudder going through her as the clench of her vaginal muscles pulled his fingers in deeper.

The noise she made was remarkable, shuddering breathy cries that seemed to take up the entire room until she finally went still.

“River? Is it over?”

Her eyes were still closed tight as she shook her head.

“Not even remotely.”

With that she began tearing at her own clothes, and the Doctor was a little encouraged when he saw she was ripping her own stuff as well. He was going to find buttons all over the place for weeks, probably blushing each time he did so.

Underneath her clothes, River was still curved like a violin, and the Doctor felt like he really ought to say something nice. That was customary, right?

“Oh, but you’re just lovely, aren’t you River.”

“Compliments are rather pointless right now,” she huffed.

A firm hand tangled in the remains of his shirt got him pulled right down in her face, and he nearly went cross eyed trying to hold her gaze. Judging from the way River was panting against his mouth though, it wasn't really what she was after. It took him a second to catch up, but by then, River had already pulled his mouth down to hers, muffling his ”Of course. Kissing! Sorry about that” with her lips.

There was still too much teeth going on, but this time at least it didn’t feel like she was trying to bite his lip off. It was nice in a frantic, bruising kind of way. In fact when she sucked his bottom lip into her mouth, the sharpness of her teeth just a blunt pressure against him, he wasn’t able to stop his hips from jerking.

River seemed to relish that. Her hands snuck down towards his partly unbuttoned trousers, but the Doctor shied away, and ruthlessly shoved back at the rush of interest as his fingers returned to her labia, and sinking back inside.

“You’ll give yourself carpal tunnel if you’re only going to use your fingers,” she remarked, managing an impressive amount of familiar snark despite her breathlessness and the eager tilt of her hips, making him snort with laughter.

Rather than letting up though, the Doctor kept at it, fingers growing more confident as he brought her to orgasm once more, River shuddering and moaning underneath him.

Pressing his erection against the mattress took some of the edge off, as did his carefully controlled breathing. Time Lords weren’t slaves to simple physical stimuli as humans were, even though they reacted to it similarly. It could be suppressed.

He could stay detached, see her though this properly

That being said, his fingers were indeed starting to cramp a little, and River showed no signs of being through it any time soon, still reduced to mostly non-articulate moans and high pitched, almost whistle like noises to what was going on. It wasn’t exactly how he had thought it would go – on the vague, abstract musings he’d had on the subject, The Doctor had suspected there would be a lot more talking when having sex with River, more of her husky laughter.  

As if sensing his thoughts, River began verbalising again all of a sudden.

“Please sweetie, I can’t take this anymore, I’m burning up, I need you to fuck me.” 

“Right…” he agreed after a second, obviously she was right, simple manual stimulation wasn’t going to cut it any more.

Detachment was more difficult with intercourse, but still feasible, the Doctor reassured himself as he squirmed out of the remainders of his clothes. His pants almost caught on his erection, and the whole undressing process was made increasingly difficult as River immediately was back to her old tricks of kissing and licking at him as soon as he wasn’t pacifying her with his fingers.

Within a few short moments, she had wriggled into place and brought him inside.

The first press into her body knocked the air from his lungs, the sheer heat of the union making sweat bead along his upper lip, his neck, the small of his back. There wasn’t a lot of time for nerves though; River immediately began rocking her hips, strong hands on his backside forcing him to keep up.

It was nice, more than nice really, and the Doctor grit his teeth to refrain from babbling. Although a number of fresh superlatives popped up in his head at each trust of his hips, he had a feeling River wasn’t going to enjoy being compared to a plate of cookies fresh from the oven right now. He bit into her shoulder instead, and got a rather spectacular moan in response that made him rear back again immediately. 

Not in pain though, from the looks of her. Skin flushed with pleasure, her glorious curls even wilder than usual with sweat and exertion, there was nonetheless something distressed in her glassy gaze as he followed her movements.

“What?” he finally panted.

“You’re not enjoying this.”

“Yes I am, this is very nice,” he protested even though there obviously hadn’t been a question mark after her statement, but that only seemed to make her even more distressed. 

“Come down here.”

“I’ll crush you.”

“Well, then fucking crush me, you batty bastard,” she snapped, apparently out of patience, and yanked his arm out of the brace position, making him collapse on top of her.

“River!”

She paid him no mind, arms and legs winding round him like an octopus as she kept rolling her hips, nipples hardening into points against the rub of his chest.

Her fingers were surprisingly forceful as they tracked a pattern up along his spine, pressing down so hard it was like she was trying to stamp her fingerprints onto his skin. It had been so long since he had felt the resulting rush of sensation that for a moment he thought he had been poisoned too. Before he remembered what it was. 

The Doctor gasped, eyes widening in alarm as he lifted himself up a little to stare down her face.

Rather than answer, River dug her nails into the nape of his neck and spread her legs wider, and the pressure intensified until he could barely breathe. He could feel everything tenfold as long forgotten parts of his brain came online – the ache in his erection, the tingle in his toes, the throb of blood in his temples, even the cramp in his wrist. 

“Come on, sweetie, give it all you got,” River whispered, finding a new pressure point, this one right behind his left ear, and the Doctor cried out sharply, hips jerking in full force at the shock of it.

Things were moving so quickly that he only registered them in jerky flashes – the obscene moans spilling from the red of River’s wet open mouth, the smell of sex and sweat soaking into the sheets, the flutter of her muscles around him as he scraped his teeth over her jaw.

And then all of a sudden he was coming with his hands fisting her hair and his teeth clamping down on her shoulder as he pounded her into the mattress. 

It was nothing like his first orgasm. The Doctor felt free floating and hazy and River’s wandering hands only gradually brought him back to himself. He had not had sex like that for several centuries, and now the experience felt close to overwhelming him as he trembled in the circle of her arms. 

The nerve clusters were a stable of sexual congress amongst Time Lords, meant to facilitate telepathic intercourse through sensory overload. Until now their existence was just another reminder of something he could never have again. 

There was no way River could known about them unless he’d shown her himself, or that she was indeed part of the same species as he’d suspected in his wilder moments.

That thought finally brought the Doctor to raise himself up on shaky arms to stare down at River, who didn’t seem the least bit better than before. Rather she seemed even tenser, still flushed and panting sharply as she ran her fingers down his flank and up his bottom.

“How did you know how to do that?” He whispered, but one look into River’s now glassy eyes told him that she had finally lost herself to the drug induced trance.

The Doctor couldn’t tell how much she actually comprehended of what was going on, and when he pushed inside her again, trying to slow the frantic pump of her hips to something a bit gentler that wouldn’t be quite so taxing for her if they were going to stay like this even longer, he was marvelling at the trust she had put in him.

He was in no doubt that she had other more experienced lovers (disregarding his older self) that she could have gone to instead, but she had entrusted this to him. While he was still too afraid to poke at what that said about their relationship, he would be remiss not to honour that trust.

"You're safe, River, I've got you," he whispered, trying to get enough of a handle on himself that he could project those thoughts at her, hoping she was able to feel it.

He lost track of time after that – reduced to following the increasingly hoarse cries from River’s warm mouth, the grip of her warm, sweaty hands. By the time there was a flicker of recognition in River’s gaze again, the Doctor was shaking and barely able to hold himself up.

“Sweetie?” Her voice was cracked and hoarse, the grip of her fingers shifting into something less bruising and more forgiving.

“Back with me again?” he muttered, stilling his movements and urging River onto her side.

“I think so,” River said, wincing when she shifted her hips back into him, half heartedly urging him on once more. “If we go really slow, I think it’s going to be over soon.”

Obeying her request, the Doctor pushed inside, River moaning brokenly as she rocked along with him.

"You in pain?" 

"You're not?" There was almost laughter in her reply.

"A little," he admitted with a grin that he hid in her sweat matted hair, hips aching as he pressed forward.

Rather than answer him, she grabbed his hand, bringing it around to cup her breast, but holding him to her in what seemed more like an embrace – a plea for comfort rather than satisfaction. Wrapping both arms tightly around her, they rocked together so slowly they were barely moving at all.

It was almost nice despite the full body ache, his parched throat and the pounding exhaustion behind his eyes. Curled so tightly around River, he struggled to remember the last time he had felt so close to someone. Even with the millions of unanswered questions between them. 

Despite how many times she had climaxed, or perhaps because of it, he wasn’t too sure at this point in the proceedings, River’s final orgasm was a loud, intense affair. Her entire body contorted in his arms, and somehow, impossibly, managed to drag him along with her again into a blissful, relieved oblivion.

When the Doctor opened his eyes again, his face was squashed into the sheets; head feeling like it was just as full of stuffing as the pillows were. He hadn’t even registered he’d fallen asleep.

The watch on the bedside table had only moved an hour, and it took him several bleary blinks to realised it was in fact 25 hours later – time sense slow to reboot. No wonder waking up was so difficult. 

Shifting he had to wince, body still sore despite his strong time lord constitution. He wondered how long it had been since he had been able to feel each individual muscle in his hips and groin.

River was still out cold next to him, face flushed and lips parted as she slumbered. Her hair looked wild enough that he was half expecting it to sprout legs and crawl away, and all of a sudden he could barely breathe for all the tenderness that suddenly welled up under his ribs. 

Skittish, as if he was approaching a sleeping predator, he reached out a finger to trace over a bite mark on her shoulder, getting a sudden, graphic flash of what had been going on when he had put it there. Quick flashes of other, even filthier memories following as he let his gaze roam over her body – skin a tableau of bruises and bite marks – and absurdly he felt a fresh shiver of arousal.

“Are you kidding me?” he muttered to himself, and got out of the bed, only to freeze in place when River stirred. 

She didn’t wake though, merely flopped onto her other side, the curve of her breast and the pink of her nipple coming into view as the blankets slipped. 

Staggering out of the room, he went in search for a shower rather than stand around and gawking at River like an idiot.

Clean from the smell of sex and sweat, and back in a fresh shirt and trousers he was loath to return, but forced himself to at least leave a glass of water and an apple by the bed before climbing down into the Tardis swing and set to forgetting time and reworking her wires rather than think of what had happened before he passed out like he had just regenerated. 

“Doctor?”

He nearly slammed his head up against the bottom of the rotor at the sound of River’s voice, and somehow managed to slap himself in the face before he got the goggles up on his forehead.

  
He noticed with some disappointment that she had obviously showered as well, hair no longer looking like a small, feral animal, but softly bouncing about her face, brushing the shoulders of the simple green dress she was wearing.

And then immediately got distracted by the shadow of bruises in the shape of his fingers around her arm.

“Hello, you’re up. I mean, good morning. Or afternoon I suppose, or is it evening. No, what am I talking about, we’re in the vortex, no morning, noon or night there.”

“You’re babbling,” River interrupted.

“So I am, I’ll stop now.”

“Are you alright?”

“Perfectly fine, just touching up the Tardis.” 

River’s lips quirked, and it was all he could do not to cram his own fist in mouth to stop himself from starting to babble again.

“I made tea if you want some? It’s in the second kitchen on the right.”

“There’s a second kitchen on the right?” 

“There is now,” 

“Right, okay, thanks.”

The Doctor watched her leave, the soft fabric of her dress following the sway of her hips, and he was shaking again. Rearranging the wires of the Tardis apparently hadn’t helped the slightest in uncrossing the wires in his brain.

It took a lot of nagging his own feet and scolding his own brain before the Doctor finally made it to the kitchen River had settled in. Perched on the table, with one dainty foot swinging about as she sipped her tea, she looked far too calm.

Rather than speaking, she merely nodded towards a mug next to her, and the Doctor shuffled over.

“You okay, sweetie? Being awfully quiet there.” 

“I’m good, yeah, fine.”

“Good, because for a moment there I thought I’d shagged a few of your brain cells loose,” it sounded like her usual jokes, but was soft rather than sharp.

“No, I think they’re all accounted for," he said with rapidly blushing cheeks.  

Looking to the side he realised that her dress dipped low in the back, showing of the gentle shift of her muscles as she changed position, and suddenly he could barely breathe, overwhelmed by the urge to bury his face there, map each line of her shoulder blades, the curve of her spine with his mouth. 

When the Doctor forced his gaze back to her face, she was looking at him as if she exactly what he was thinking. He wondered if she’d worn the dress on purpose. Just to tease him.

He resented and loved that idea in equal measures.

“I should probably scan you, see if your vitals are back to normal,” he mumbled and took her free arm, fingers skating over the criss cross of veins in the crook of her elbow before he used his sonic on her. 

“You seem to be in order.”

“Sounding a bit disappointed there, Doctor, you rearing to go for round two?”

“No,” he protested, sounding far more petulant than he had intended, and judging from the twitch in River’s brows, it hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“Sweetie,” there she went again with the soft tone rather than outrageous one that he so delighted in. “This doesn’t obligate you to anything.”

“But we…”

“I know, but we don’t have to again. You’re fun to be around when you have your clothes on too.”

“And if I want to?”

“Do you?”

The Doctor shied away from the intensity in her eyes, busying himself with finding biscuits to go with the tea instead. It wasn’t right, he thought as he rummaged through the cabinets. Even if she wasn’t human and even if they’d already done far more from her end of their time stream. Because he knew how it ended. And yet resisting her felt increasingly like paddling across an ocean in boat that had already sprung a leak, and he should know, because he’d actually done that before.

Of course that had turned out alright in the end, because he’d been picket up by a ship of pirates and... He paused, hand still half ways inside a box of shortbread – his metaphors really had a habit of getting away from him.

“Right, I think I need to go now. 

“What, why?” he whirled around and realised his hand was still inside the cookie box, but trying to shake it off only ended with him scattering shortbread everywhere. 

“Because you need time to think, my love,” she waltzed over, grabbing one of the rogue biscuits and took a bite with a kink in her left eyebrow.

“I like you, River Song,” he blurted out despite his gloomy thoughts and she smiled, not the soft, overbearing smile she’d been wearing earlier, but the saucy, flirtatious one that drove him absolutely batty.

“I know you do, my love.” 

Both his hearts promptly flew right up into his throat when she used that term of endearment for him. It wasn’t the first time she had used it of course, but given the last 48 earth hours, it hit too close to home for him to just brush it aside like he usually did.

There was something sad in her eyes suddenly as she looked at him, but of course it could just have been from the shortbread she was still chewing. They were most likely pretty stale by now. Before he could manage to swallow down the lump in his throat she leaned in and he braced for a kiss, but rather than go for his mouth, she simply brushed her lips over his cheek, her curls rumpling against his nose.

“I’ll see you soon.”


	2. My mind has seized on you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sometimes I wonder how much you actually can’t say and how much you just don’t want to say.” 
> 
> “That’s funny, I think that way about you too." 
> 
>  
> 
> Post Demon's Run, the Doctor tries to figure out how much like the Time Lords River actually is, and gets an answer. Sort of.

After Demon’s Run The Doctor managed his worst bit of flying since his earliest days with the old girl. The only thing he succeeded in was dematerialising from the asteroid base, before ending up interrupting Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, when he had in fact aimed for six centuries later and three galaxies over. The next stop took him to the right century, but still two galaxies off.

It wasn’t until he had interrupted the feast of feathers in the Swan emperor’s court by overturning the imperial pleasure barge – and then having to run off to avoid arrest – that his hands stopped shaking enough that he could get an approximate hold on the controls again.

Picking a few coloured feathers from his hair, he managed to throw the toggles into gear. Despite his confidence in front of Amy and Rory, he had no idea where to start.

After all there was no shortage of stories of River’s curly hair or reckless daring jotted down across the universe.

He had hoped that knowing where she came from would make River stand out the clearer, but found himself disappointed at each new story and each new acquaintance or enemy of hers that he ran into.

If at all possible, knowing where River Song came from made the woman – the Time Lady? – an even greater riddle. He understood where the harsh censure she had bestowed on him at Demon’s Run came from, but the revelatory joy, the affection in those mischievously melancholic eyes, was more mysterious than ever.

It seemed no one knew about River Song’s early years before signing up at Luna University, and Melody Pond was practically a non-entity. It was as if River Song had leapt into history as a fully formed adult when she had escaped the grasp of the Church.

The details of how she had done that were simply not there – he had the sneaking suspicion that both River and an older version of himself had conspired to hide that fact. And his friends said he had too much self loathing.

Several wild goose chases and dead ends later and he finally slumped into one of the crash seats.

“Please, darling, help an old man out. I need to see River,” he pleaded, and the Tardis whined – part mockery, part pity it sounded like to him – before she suddenly dematerialised and materialised much faster than usual.

The grey nondescript corridor showing on the monitor was one he knew well, but he doubted that this River could offer more help than the other versions of her.

The air was damp and a low rumble of thunder echoed through the hallway as he stepped outside, and suddenly he could barely breathe at the thought of River being there. Of course River could easily escape the facility, but on a Sunday afternoon she shouldn’t be scribbling in the light of a lone candle in a cell several centuries removed from her parents timeline, she was supposed to eat roast with them in Leadworth… Even If she was much older than them.

Gods, even with his expanded time sense, River’s history was enough to wind his brain into knots.

The smile on River’s face faded almost as quickly as it appeared when she looked him over.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?”

His throat worked a few times, but no sound was actually coming out as she stood up with a catlike roll of movement.

“I’ve just been to Demon’s Run.”

“I can’t tell you much, Doctor,” she said, apparently anticipating his question before he’d even formed it in his mind.

She didn’t step back when he soniced the door open and all of sudden The Doctor found himself all up in her personal space, close enough to see the flecks of gold in her green eyes. He was touching her before he even realised what he was doing, hand tracing up the warm skin of her forearm and settling around her elbow.

“But lets get out of this place first before you start quizzing me,” she decided.

Following the bounce of her curls, the Doctor closed the Tardis door behind them, and managed to send them into the vortex before he turned back around to face River.

“When do I find you?”

A pitying look shot his way, soft and overbearing all at once.  

“I can’t tell you that.”

Of course she couldn’t, but he still felt a hot spike of frustration at her refusal.

“But you’re not human,” he concluded.

“Strictly speaking I’m very much human. Both parents are human after all,” River said as she hoisted herself up on the console, expertly avoiding bumping into any buttons or bolts.

“And not strictly speaking?”

“I got some mutated genes that give me time lord like capabilities,” River admitted, swaying her feet in a disarmingly childish fashion.

The Doctor’s hearts clenched, remembering the baby he had held in his arms not that long ago, the girl in the space suit, desperate and crying. Somehow it was very easy seeing them in the adult River, even as confident and relaxed as she seemed now.

“You’ve regenerated before?”

She shook her head again, and instinctively he realised it was a _spoilers_ kind of head shake, not a denial.

“Sometimes I wonder how much you actually can’t say and how much you just don’t want to say.” 

“That’s funny, I think that way about you too,” she shot back at him.

“Do you have two hearts?”

His change in subject didn’t even seem to fluster her. Instead she pulled his hand to her chest, leaving it between her breasts as she reached up to remove her earbobs. As soon as she dropped them onto the console, there was a rush of new physical feedback, a flutter of a double pulse underneath her ribs.

Despite himself he pushed harder onto her chest, but she braced against it, one hand splaying firmly onto the console, the other looping around his neck.

The enormity of that double tap nearly floored him, he could feel his knees rattle under him.

“Bio dampers?” He finally managed.

“Of course, you gave them to me a long time ago.”

“Of course I did. Making things easy on myself would be too much trouble after all.”

There was a strange look on her face when he caught her eye, and before he could say anything she’d leaned in, mouth warm and soft against his.

The rattle in his knees increased.  

“Is your time lord mutations why we’re together in the future?”

“You tell me?”

“I meant from your end of the line.”

“You think a bit of extra genetic material would be enough to sway you?”

The flecks of gold in her eyes were actually more bronze than gold, at least they were this close.

“It’s hard being the last of your kind,” he muttered, absentmindedly plucking at her curls, and to his relief when she answered him, it was acerbic rather than gentle.

“Yes, but not hard enough that it would instantly make you jump my bones. You managed that fine before you knew this.”

The sexual reference came out of nowhere and immediately he felt the colour rise in his cheeks. The sad thoughts of River’s kidnapping intermingled with memories of River sweat glistening and panting underneath him, and he realised she still smelled like gunpowder and jasmine now, just as she had done the last time they had been alone together on the Tardis.

“You want to kiss me again.”

It was a statement, not a question, but he still nodded. River didn’t move though, merely looked at him until he realised she wanted him to go first.

Carefully he leaned down, pressing his lips against hers, and shivered as River’s fingers tiptoed away from his neck to fist in his hair when it deepened. The urgency rose up in him like the tide, flooded every part of his system and made him breathe just as heavy as she did. 

“I have more questions,” he muttered half heartedly as River’s mouth travelled to his neck, teeth nipping at his jaw. 

“I’m sure you do, but do they need to be answered right now?”

When he skated his fingers over the curve of her back, River arched like a cat, and for a second he could barely keep a reign on the urge to turn her over and map her back with his fingers to see if she had all the same buttons that he had.

With two hearts she was surely bound to have some of the other quirks of his species.

Once again she stared at him as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

“No, I suppose not, but…”

“Then come along,” she interrupted.

He staggered after her on unsteady feet as she propelled herself off of the console and headed into the inner corridors of the Tardis.

To his surprise and delight she led him towards the room they had been in the last time, only now it looked completely different. Like an actual bedroom and not just a room that happened to have a bed in it. He caught sight of what looked decidedly like women’s clothing tossed over the back of a chair along with what he recognised as his set of coat and tails. 

And the whole room smelled like her perfume.

“River, I… hmpf…”

It took him a while to stop trying to speak and start going along with the kiss, but when he did, the throbbing, electric feeling was back, sparking along every nerve ending she activated with her fingers and her lips, even with the brush of her hair against his ear.

“So is this a recurring thing. I ask you questions and you try to get me into bed to distract me,” he asked when she moved away from his mouth and began yanking on the bowtie. 

“Who do you think taught me that?”

“I’m not that kind of manipulative.” 

“Who said anything about being manipulative? Sometimes it’s just easier to let the body speak,” she punctuated the remark with a press of fingers along his spine, and the Doctor shuddered, forehead dropping onto her shoulders as he suddenly had to cling to her.

Despite the shivers, he scoffed against the coarse fabric of her tank top. If he had ever been of that opinion, it was so long ago he could barely remember it. Certainly not for the last several centuries, although sex could be a pleasant enough distraction.

Sighing, River pushed away from him and pulled off the tank top and the rather utilitarian bra underneath before letting herself fall face first onto the sheets.

“Come on then. See if you can find them.”

The Doctor scrambled onto the bed next to her, immediately fascinated by the unbroken swathe of tan skin, the sprinkle of freckles on her shoulder.

“Oi, shoes off, these sheets are nice,” River protested and unceremoniously pushed him off the bed again.

He squeaked as he collided with the floor then winced as he heard her giggle. She was still chuckling when he managed to sit up again, glaring at her across the mattress, but she only smiled at him, golden green eyes winking at him from under her mop of curly hair.

“You’re terrible.”

“I do hope so, now shoes off and come here with those nice hands of yours.”

Muttering insults that only made her smile wider, the Doctor loosened his laces and finally managed to toe them of and climbed back onto the bed. Only when he was next to her, she seemed more interested in kissing him again, warm and soft, her naked breasts pressing against his shirt when he wrapped his arms around her.

It was interesting this, kissing her unhurried, languidly, noting the texture of her lips, the silky whorl of her hair around his fingers when he cupped her neck. The last time he had to work so fast in case that she would hump him stupid if he couldn’t kept up, but now she seemed to take her cues from him, pushing back only as much as he pressed forward. Following the gradual change in her temperature and the tension in her muscles as her blood rushed mostly south was intoxicating, his own light-headedness confirming that the exact thing was happening to him. A feeling both alien and familiar at the same time. 

Awkwardly his hands just sort of flopped onto her shoulders before he managed to find enough courage to skate his fingers down her spine.

Her skin was almost impossibly soft, and when she shivered, he was right there with her. There was no reaction beyond the usual sigh of pleasure when he found the corresponding spots for his nerve clusters on her back, and so he counted further down her vertebrates.

“Getting warmer, sweetie,” she muttered into his mouth, arching against him. 

Taking her cue, his touch moved further south, until he finally reached the dimples on her lower back, and there was a soft hitch in her breath. All of a sudden he was so painfully excited, he could barely see straight, let alone concentrate enough to kiss her. 

“Remember how?” 

Instead of answering – it wasn’t the sort thing you could forget – he began moving his fingers in hard, sharp circles resulting in frantic little moans from River. Grabbing one of his hands and tearing it from its position in the small of her back, she yanked it into the front of her sweatpants instead.

Swollen, warm and slicker the further he pressed in, and when River spoke again, every word sounded like a moan.

“You like my cunt, sweetie?” 

“What?” He grunted, rather surprised that he managed to keep up the pressure on the nerves in her back while drawing out the slickness from her at the same time. 

“Like how wet my cunt is for you?” 

Well, putting it like that…

She shuddered suddenly, one second to the next, fluttering under the touch of his fingers, and a rush of thoughts collided with him. _Sweetie, my Doctor, warm, such wonderful hands, close, want you, want you, **want you.** _

“River?”

Gods, his voice was pathetically reedy, the psychic feedback from River had gotten him so hard it was starting to hurt.

“What do you want, Doctor?” she whispered, voice muffled by the fall of her hair.

He had no idea, his body was one big shiver of want, the shakes too bad for him to have any sort of control of his own limbs. Brushing her curls aside, River apparently saw his predicament and grinned predatorily. 

"How about I start and you tell me what works for you?" 

Quite a bit of it, as it turned out. For a body that up until now had been pretty disinterested in sex, it certainly enjoyed River's hands and mouth on it – pinching at his surprisingly sensitive nipples - that definitely hadn't been a thing in his last body – mouthing over the ridges of his ribs, which forced him too choke down a giggle, before biting at the delicate skin of his inner thigh.

“Oh bloody hell, River,” the Doctor moaned when she shifted, delicate fingers wrapping around his erection and then sunk her mouth down over it.

He could feel her smile despite her mouth being stuffed full of… well… him, and he moaned again. River already had a marvellous mouth, her smile, the sensational things she said, the way her tongue looked when she wet her lips. He should have known that it would be marvellous at this too. His fingers fluttered about helplessly, going for her hair, retreating, before coming back. Finally River lost patience with his fidgeting, and she placed his hand firmly in her curls.

Adjusting his grip, the Doctor wrapped more of her honey blonde hair around his fingers, and pulled, managing to reveal what she was doing to him. As if hypnotised, he watched the spectacular and obscene tableau of the thrust of his cock between the red swell of her lips. Watched until he couldn’t watch anymore and his eyes rolled back into his head.

“River!” 

"Too much?" she whispered breathlessly into the semi darkness of the room, and his entire body shivered head to toe as her breath skirted over the wet head.  

"No, but I'm going to..." 

“That was kind of the idea, sweetie,” she interrupted and before he could say anything else, she went back to work, her hands joining the party, diving between his legs to cup his balls. And the pleasure was so intense, it hurt too.

She swallowed down around him as he came with a whimper he was half embarrassed to admit to, hips shaking against her touch and her mouth.  

“Mmm,” River wiped her mouth as she sat up, face flushed and a devilish glint in her eyes. “I like your cock.”

He jerked and not just from post orgasmic satisfaction, which made River tilt her head thoughtfully to the side.

“Huh, I thought you were pretty much into dirty talk from day one. It appears I was wrong,” she mused with a purse of her very swollen lips.

It wasn’t that he found it off putting. Not in the slightest judging from the heat starting to pool in his groin again, but instead of saying anything like that, using his words were apparently too much work right now, he rolled them over.

River laughed, full of delight as she settled on her back, and the Doctor smiled into the kiss he gave her, intrigued when he tasted himself on her tongue, before mouthing his way down her neck. He had expected there would be laughter in bed with River, and he was very happy to realise he was right. The chuckle didn’t last long though, dying out when he began to lave attention on her rosy nipples.

He was almost ridiculously pleased to realise that it didn’t take an aphrodisiac poison to reduce her to incoherency – the Doctor spent so long nuzzling and sucking at her breasts that she was practically begging for mercy, yanking at his hair to get his attention.

“You coming up here?”

“No,” he protested shimmying downward and shouldering himself in between her thighs “I’m not done yet.”

"You don't have to do that... it's early days for you." 

"I want to," he insisted even as he could feel himself blushing right up into the roots of his hair. 

The heat was practically rising off of her, and he looked at her for a moment, deciding with an little smile that he liked the look of her there as well, not just the feel, the slick pinks and reds of her swollen lips, the blonde curls of her pubic hair. 

And he especially liked the noises she made when he began licking over the bump of her clitoris as he worked a couple of fingers into her. He had to admit to being a bit lost, but thankfully River wasn't just good at being vocal, she was very good a giving directions as well, steering him with words and a firm hand in his hair that dipped further down and dug into the nerve cluster behind his ear when he did something particularly well.

But even with that kind of incitement, his jaw was still aching by the time her moans turned into fully fletched cried. Feeling the flutter of her orgasm under his tongue was a different sensation altogether, the taste of her changing as well in a way that made him renew his attention until River pushed him away with a hand to his forehead.

“You’re relentless,” she said with a heaving laughter.

“Sorry.” 

“Don’t apologise, sweetie, in this case that’s a great quality,” she chuckled, making him blush once more.

He was hard again, but River appeared so meltingly relaxed that it seemed presumptuous to try to kiss her again. So he waited and agonised, as his gaze was drawn to the pearls of sweat at her hairline, the swollen points of her nipples, the curve of her navel and lower still…

“Having a bit of trouble there, Doctor?”

“No.”

“Liar.” 

She rolled over, draping herself over his chest and her fingers tiptoed down his sternum, wrapping around his erection with a firm grip.

“What were you planning to use this for then?” she gave him a vague tug for good measure, making his breath hiss. 

“I’d like to, well,” he shrugged. “You know.” 

“No, I don’t, sweetie, why don’t you tell me?”

He wouldn’t have thought it possible for her to look innocent or naïve, but somehow she managed it, eyes soft and wide, even as she slowly picked up speed. 

“I’d like to...” he swallowed thickly, burying his face in her hair. Without her eyes boring into his, the next words came a little easier, even if they were so low pitched it could barely be called a whisper, “get my cock… in your cunt.”

River jolted against him, jerking her fingers round said cock, and make him thrust harder into her grip with a startled grunt in turn.

She laughed then, delighted, filthy laughter, and then let go of him altogether.

“There we go, sweetie.”

Letting go of him, River swung her leg over his side, and with practised ease sunk down onto him instead. 

He was relieved that River’s moans sounded just as wrecked as his own did when she began a gentle rocking motion in his lap. The drag of their bodies against one another was so much more intense than last time. 

“Come on, sit up.” River tugged him upwards until he finally managed to find leverage in this new position, and when his arms went around River he realised the advantage. He had free access to her lower back, and she could easily walk her fingers up and down his spine and he was already starting on his ends of the proceedings before he realised what he was doing. The nerve clusters in River’s lower back had begun heating under his hands. 

The psychic energy hit him sharply, without warning, at the same time as River’s inner muscles clamped down on him. As her back bowed and her breasts were thrust up against his face, he felt River’s emotions batter against his mental shields, joy, desire, lust, love... Warm, unmistakable love, and he dropped them.

It was a like whoozy, golden light spilled into his head, and he shared in her pleasure. He was the Doctor, buried as deep inside of her as he could, riding the psychic spillback of her climax, and he was River, cunt split open on the Doctor’s cock as she clenched around him over and over again, orgasm spiralling on and on, and she never wanted it to stop. She wanted to fuck her Doctor forever, could happily stay here, would let him do with her what he wanted.

He laughed helplessly as he realised how much more crass she was than him, how much he had to learn judging from the images in her head, and then in the midst of all of her joy and orgasmic pleasure there was a strain of sadness, because she knew it wouldn’t be forever. Couldn’t be, because she had…

The Doctor gasped, pulling away from that strain of her thoughts immediately, realising suddenly how dangerous this all was, and yet he couldn’t get himself to stop, couldn’t bring himself to shut her out, because he was so close to melding into her too.

He rolled them over, thrusting hard inside of her, and felt the shudder of pain-tinged pleasure it provoked in River’s head.

“What do you want me to do?” he whispered, no longer sure if he was actually speaking out loud or if they were speaking only in their minds.

“Slower, harder,” she gasped, wrapping her legs higher around his waist, and the both of them groaned harshly at the change in angle.

Shoving one hand under her back, the Doctor dug his fingers into the dimples he found there, the other gripping onto the trellis of the headboard for leverage. Digging in with his knees, River keened at the force and depth of his next thrust, heels bearing down on his bottom. The pitch in her cries had changed – as had his own – when the change in pace somehow made her seem even tighter and wetter around him.

River braced herself with one hand against the trellis too, the fingers of the other biting into the sensitive flesh around his spine, and then he was finally coming too, his ecstasy spilling into her thoughts. He felt her riding it into her own, fresh climax. The Doctor couldn’t tell where his pleasure ended and hers began as she sucked him impossibly deeper, her screams echoing in both his inner and outer ear.

Coming back to himself was difficult. His mind liked being linked with River’s, the grip of his thoughts into hers softer and more delicate than any physical touch, but when the pleasure slowly began to clear from their minds, others thoughts would come knocking, things they couldn’t share, and so, reluctantly, he pulled away. First physically, then mind following suit, staring down into her eyes, soft and luminous in her flushed face. 

“How’s that for letting the body speak?”

The Doctor chuckled weakly, and rolled over, watching River close her legs and squirm into a more comfortable position. He reached out to trace her features as soon as she looked in his direction again. He adored this face, with her wide tipped nose and flexible eyebrows, how plush her lips felt under his roving thumb. The thought of her ever looking different seemed wrong. So much of what he liked about her was written into the lines of her face, but had he adored her with a different face too when she was younger, and he older?

“Can you regenerate?”

Pushing her curls, wild from the exertion, River sighed, somewhere between resignation and frustration.

“Yes, I can regenerate."

“Has it already happened, how old are you now?” 

“Rude," she muttered with a delicate sniff and then snatched up his hand, still roving across her face and neck, and pressed soft kisses into the pads of his fingertips. 

River in a different body would mean more time. More of her smiles, more of her recklessness and more hours spend like this. Because this was it, he could feel it. There would be no more pretending that he could pull away from her.

“Please, River.”

“There are still too much that you can’t know. Not yet.”

“So where am I going after this?”

“Where you are supposed to.”

“That’s not any kind of answer, River.”

Her eyes were sad, but he recognised the steely set of her chin well enough to know it was all the answer he was going to get. The soft afterglow faded in favour of anger and frustration, and he could already tell that the back-to-front nature of their entanglement wasn’t just the axis that their relationship turned on, it was also the thing that all their future fights would revolve around in one form or another.

“You will find me when you’re supposed to and help me when you’re supposed to. When or how is not something I can tell you, but you will, because otherwise we wouldn’t be here right now. You got to trust me on that.”

Obviously sensing the brittleness of his feelings, River closed the space between them and automatically he wrapped his arms around her as he let her pull him down for a slow, lazy kiss that made his toes curls despite his agitation. His fingers skirted down the length of her body, from the soft wing of her shoulder blades to the plump curve of her bottom.

“So trust to hope?” the Doctor muttered when they parted, words barely more than whisper in between the beats of his freshly pounding hearts.

“Of course, you are and will always be the optimist after all.”

“And what does that make you?”

“An almost, but not quite lost cause?”

An improbable dream more like, he thought, staring at the play of light across her face. She shouldn’t have been real, but there she was, in his arms and in his bed and lost in space and time all at once.

“You’re impossible, River.”

“I try to be.” There was a beat, an intensity in her gaze that made him squirm. “Give me a kiss.”

And so he did. As always wildly and blindly reaching out for any kind of time the universe would give him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for going on this journey with me. 
> 
> This past year has been some of the most productive time for me fic-wise and it's definitely down to these two. Endlessly inspiring apparently. 
> 
> Also, I'm still on Tumblr after the purge, because apparently I can't really be bothered to go somewhere else. [Come and say hi](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/unseemingowl), if you wanna.


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